For the Love of Cupcakes
by grassyhyuuga
Summary: "No-one liked working with him, but that was just fine. He didn't like working with them, either." In which Kakashi is a pastry chef, Gai is Gai, and Minato practices laissez-faire management.


**Notes**: A gift fic. Contains non-explicit M/M content.

* * *

It's amazing how many old friends crawl out of the woodwork when school bake-sale season rolls around.

Suddenly, he's everyone's favourite non-related uncle. Grade school children invade his flat and cling to his legs menacingly until he agrees to make cupcakes. Their parents pretend to scold them, but he can see through the well-rehearsed ruse.

Though he complains, he makes sure the icing on the cupcakes is extra thick. Kakashi groans and moans, but he doesn't mind, not really. What's a few dozen more cupcakes to the hundreds he bakes daily?

* * *

Kakashi was one of those children born aged and with no grand aspirations except a desire to have an uneventful life. His boyhood consisted of reading in trees, reading in fields, and reading in the fishing boat that his father bought in hope of spending quality time with his son.

His mother was certain his nearsightedness stemmed from rocking and reading in that little boat while his father tried, unsuccessfully, to engage him in fishing or conversation. No matter how long he stayed out under that lukewarm suburban sun, his skin remained pale, and his father disappointed.

Baking began as a way to remember his mother without really remembering her. Soon, he could no longer recall her face in great detail, yet he could taste her in the double chocolate chip cookies she would make for Halloween or the oatmeal muffins everyone professed to hate but ate anyway.

They were invisible to his father, who would evacuate from the house whenever he heard the sound of their antiquated oven preheating. Somehow, he always forgot to buy flour unless Kakashi went to the store with him.

Sakumo remembered his wife by not remembering her. He didn't need to — he saw her in the slight bump in Kakashi's nose and the way his lips slanted for one of his rare, crooked smiles.

They never really learned how to talk to one another and led solitary existences together.

* * *

Out of the handful of friends he made before he left his hometown, only one still kept in contact.

Gai, like him, was a confirmed bachelor. He was Peter Pan, except with thicker brows and rather more muscle. It was difficult to explain, but the man made others feel young just by breathing.

He did nothing by halves. He aspproached teaching with the same enthusiasm he put into physical training, his love for the colour green, and being a good friend.

Every month, without fail, he showed up at Kakashi's door in one of his hideously green dress shirts.

"Let's go out!"

Kakashi would wince, pulling the man into the flat before his neighbours stopped associating with him altogether.

"Keep your voice down."

He'd try to distract the man with biscuits and pies, yet eventually Gai would put his foot down. Literally.

"Kakashi." Stomp. "I insist." Stomp. "That you." Stomp. "Get changed." Stomp.

Every month, without fail, Kakashi gave in. It was impossible to say no to the man.

* * *

The day he left home for culinary school his father gathered him in a tight, desperate hug. Kakashi, limp with surprise, had not hugged him back.

That was the second to last time he saw his father. The last time, he was laid out in his best suit, pale and bloodless.

* * *

"I don't know how you stay so fit when you bake cakes and pies and shit all day."

He raised a brow. Sure. He baked _shit_.

"He has an inhuman metabolism."

"No, Chouza. He works out. Unlike _some_ people."

Kakashi just slouched, mentally cursing himself for being so weak. He could be at home, catching up on sleep. Instead, he was here.

'Socialising'.

His schedule wasn't exactly conducive to the activity. He left the house before dawn and returned to pass out before most night club employees were awake. On his day off, Kakashi tended to keep to himself and his books. When inanity was on a page and not gushing out of someone's mouth, he could shelve it.

* * *

At work, he was more machine than human. The oven was simply an extension of himself, and the other employees background noise. He regarded them with mechanical calculation, using them as flour-carriers and dough-kneaders.

The only thing that brought softness to his features was the pastries.

Each was a perfectly-polished fragment of his concentration.

Once, a new assistant had dropped an entire tray of fresh-out-the-oven scones. Kakashi had cracked two eggs and smeared them on his head.

(No-one liked working with him, but that was just fine. He didn't like working with them, either.)

* * *

A new manager meant little to him. His contract was with the owner — Jiraiya knew him, knew that he was good, and knew to leave him well alone.

So he paid no mind to the titters and mutters of his colleagues, preferring to continue his work. Maybe, if he finished his quota early, he could catch a film before going home.

* * *

It was like the sun had crashed through the roof of their little bakery. Namikaze Minato blazed his way into the hearts of nearly everyone in the store, his bright disposition a far cry from that of his glacial and wrinkled predecessor.

Kakashi took one look and winced. It must hurt to be so cheerful all the time.

* * *

"Why don't you try adding some pecans?"

Kakashi fumed and muttered to himself, beating batter with rather more force than necessary.

"_Pecans_."

* * *

"Good work today, Kakashi-san!"

He jumped, and, annoyed at himself for his reaction, lengthened his strides without a backward glance.

* * *

A head poked through the hole where finished delicacies were delivered to the front counter. Kakashi blinked, stifling the urge to bash the man with his rolling pin. Like in one of those hit-the-gopher games. Except with a single target. And possibly blood.

"Your blueberry pie is selling especially well today."

The crust had come out a beautiful brown.

He only grunted. "I'll make more."

* * *

They met once a month.

Jiraiya was a family friend. (Perhaps just "friend" now, since he had no more family.)

A corner booth, with a clear view of the door, suited them both.

"So." The man put his fork down with a flourish. Everything he did was with a flourish "What'd you think of the new guy I hired to run the place."

Kakashi finished chewing and swallowed before answering.

"He's-" _idiotic, an amateur, too fucking chipper _"-okay."

Jiraiya only laughed, a bit of soup splashing onto the table when he jostled his spoon.

"Good, good."

* * *

He hated Christmas. No matter what year it was, he always seemed to receive no less than half a dozen rolling pins and various moulds.

All of which he already owned, some twice over.

Gai always got him something _green_, and Kakashi always threatened to throw whatever present he bought away, hideous wrapping and all.

This year, he refused every invitation. (There were three, an astronomical number.)

His father had hated eggnog, so he filled up his fridge with it, along with a bottle of rum.

By nine o'clock, he had unplugged the landline and turned off his cell phone. Gai could be so fucking persistent.

By ten, he was drinking the rum straight. He hated eggnog. And coke was for the weak.

At eleven, the bell rang, and he stared at his front door as if it'd grown fur. His steps were deceptively steady, and he opened the door with an admonition hot on his tongue.

"Kakashi-san."

"Uh." He had been expecting Gai. This less-green thing on his doorstep made his head whirl for a moment.

"I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought I could drop off your present." The man politely averted his eyes from the empty bottles sprawled over the living room.

"You got me a present." He gave the other man the same look he'd given the door just moments ago.

Sheepishness crawled onto Minato's face, breathed its last, and died. "I got everyone a present. Forgot to give you yours before you left."

Kakashi took the proffered package, squinting at it with suspicion.

"Better not be a fucking baking tray, I swear-"

"It's not." Uncharacteristic uncertainty marred the other man's expression.

"Oh."

A book.

"Thank you." It was his turn to be sheepish. He couldn't stop his fingers from flipping the pages, new and white and perfect.

"Well, I'm glad you like it."

There was finality in his tone. Kakashi's eyes were still fixed on the book.

"Why are you here?"

Minato hesitated for a second too long. "To deliver your gift?"

"It's Christmas Eve."

"I know that."

"Don't you have somewhere to be?"

Finally, that mask cracked, revealing a twist in the face underneath. _So, not all rainbows-sunshine-golden boy now, huh? _

"Don't _you_?"

He slammed the door.

Kakashi plodded back to the couch, satisfied that _that_ was taken care of, too tipsy to register that there had been no sound of irate footfalls.

Instead of storming off, Minato stormed _in_, eyes flashing, face lined with anger. Kakashi had the presence of mind to gape at the man for a moment before smoothing his expression back to one of vehement disinterest (or its nearest inebriated cousin).

"What's your problem?"

Lips tilting in wry amusement, Kakashi gestured to the bottles, the bare, balding Christmas tree, the lack of presents beneath the tree. "Pick one."

"You're so rude. You're _incredibly_ rude."

"Wow, really?

Darker and darker those blue eyes went as irritation from the past months scuttled forth like cockroaches.

"You're selfish, and you're deliberately uncooperative. You're a rude piece of _shit_."

Kakashi stood, the words rolling off him like water off a duck, and stalked toward the other man.

"Yeah. I am." He was close enough now to see the corded tendons in Minato's forearms. Really, there was no need to get so worked up. "Now get out."

Minato stood his ground, nostrils flaring. He was almost tolerable like this, stripped of politeness and puppyish naiveté. The thought startled a bark of laughter from Kakashi, who leaned forward even more.

"What're you waiting for? A kiss goodbye?"

And then the other man tugged him forward as if for a headbutt — Kakashi prepared himself for the collision, except he was met with teeth and lips and heat. The fist in his shirt flattened and a hand tugged at his hair, there was something behind him, the couch, his knees seemed to lose all will to function and buckled.

They breathed together, angry, aroused, angry again at the fact that they'd just kissed, if it could even be called a kiss, as raw and sloppy as it'd been.

Reflexes dulled by the alcohol, Kakashi could only raise an eyebrow. "What was that?"

It was an interesting thing to watch, a usually controlled man restoring that control, the requisite parts falling onto the planes of his face like pieces of a jigsaw. Just as Minato started to push off, back half-arched, Kakashi propped himself up on his elbows.

"Stay," he said, dark eyes missing their normal edge, "if you don't have somewhere else to be."

He took inaction for assent, angling his face so that this time their noses would not bump. They sank back into the couch, there really was no gel in that gravity-defying blond hair, and it seemed Minato was tolerable this way, too, as lonely as he, aching, _warm_.

It seemed Kakashi could learn to be a more tolerant man.


End file.
